


Steal You Back

by thatsrightdollface



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Heist, Introspection, M/M, Occasional swearing, Post-Canon, Second Chances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24712294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: “Someday you will die somehow, and something’s gonna steal your carbon.”— “Parting of the Sensory,” Modest MouseShuichi is recruited for a mission by the newly-reformed D.I.C.E. gang.  Kokichi comes home.This was written for Ouma Month 2020 on Tumblr -- specifically, for Day 10 and the DICE prompt!
Relationships: Oma Kokichi & DICE, Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi, Others mentioned
Comments: 12
Kudos: 114





	Steal You Back

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there~~~ Happy almost Kokichi's birthday!!! (Not... not exactly, but still.) I hope you enjoy this fic if you read it. I had a lot of fun with this, but artistic liberties were definitely taken lol (especially with technology? You'll see.) 
> 
> I got my info on what white roses can symbolize from a google search and the very first thing that came up -- something called fiftyflowers.com. So. Credit where it's due! 
> 
> Thank you!!! I hope you're staying safe. Please know I'm wishing you well. And also, thank you to the people running the Ouma Month 2020 event!!! Geez you have so many fun prompts, this is great!!!! :')

(3.)

They’d taken most of the Danganronpa show billboards down, by now, at least. Most stores didn’t stock candy officially endorsed by the Ultimate Supreme Leader anymore, either, and most articles being published about Shuichi Saihara the Ultimate Detective and Ruiner of the Show (Destroyer of Ritual Televised Slaughter and Fun Times, who had left the Danganronpa studio just so much sparking rubble in his wake) were going a little easier on the cutting adjectives. It couldn’t be enough, obviously, but it gave Shuichi a better shot at walking down the street in peace.

Shuichi was used to people “accidentally” splashing their drinks on him, and hissing hate under their breath as he passed by, and refusing to hire him because what sort of business would they even get if they were outed as Ultimate Detective apologists? Shuichi was used to visiting his friends’ graves — his friends killed off during the Danganronpa show’s fifty-third season killing game, you know — and finding fan merchandise propped up reverently around them. Here were some commemorative goggles that looked unnervingly like the Ultimate Inventor’s, except for the price tag. See? And here’s a pair of slippers that could’ve belonged to the Ultimate Astronaut, but, well, they were still in the collector’s box and obviously they’d never been worn. 

Shuichi would admit it, even if just to himself: he made a point of cleaning off at least one of his old friends’ graves, over and over again. He tried to look after everybody – _he tried to remember everybody_ – but he came back to Kokichi Oma, the Ultimate Supreme Leader, even when he could barely make time to sleep. Kokichi’d been a liar, faking tears and hatching schemes... he’d sworn that no matter what they thought of him he considered Shuichi and the others his friends, and he was gonna get them out of the killing game if it was the last thing he did.

And, you know. That last bit, at least, had turned out to be true. Giving everything he could to try and end the killing game _was_ the last thing Kokichi ever did, and Shuichi’d never even gotten to say... well. Shuichi’d never gotten to say anything about it, not to him. Not, “I consider you my friend, too.” Not, “I believe you... this time.” And definitely not, “Did you mean it, when you said you were always thinking about me? That you were satisfied, believing you’d stolen my heart? If you meant it, I’m glad. I’m honestly glad.”

Shuichi wouldn’t have been able to break the killing game so easily without Kokichi’s nudges in the right direction, he didn’t think. Like a smirking, sing-song-voiced ghost had been squeezing his hand as he pitted himself against the rage of the world. And you know what? Kokichi didn’t even know half the candy brands he’d been used to advertise. He wouldn’t want a bunch of strangers who’d been eager to see him bleed out wearing his infamous clown gang logo like they didn’t see the irony in it, and he probably would’ve been equal parts giddy and horrified learning costume shops sold actual masks of his face. 

Kokichi would’ve loved the idea of having his own personal action figure, Shuichi expected... but not like this. He had died cursing Team Danganronpa, along with every single viewer gleefully watching his friends fall apart. And so Shuichi went every week, at least, and he cleaned up the Ultimate Supreme Leader’s grave, gathering commemorative joke knives and glossy autographed prints — (signed with Kokichi’s official signature, though not by his actual hand, not with his living mind) — away and replacing them with bottles of grape Panta, with unopened trading card packs and... once, in June... with an armful of white roses.

White roses? 

Um. Yes.

Shuichi had read they could mean innocence, and Kokichi’d seemed so shocked anyone could ever see him as innocent. So the flowers were a joke, then, right? Maybe Kokichi would’ve liked that. White roses could also mean eternal love, though, the article Shuichi’d found had said; they could also mean new beginnings, like the one he was looking for here in the world outside their fake Ultimate Academy. The one Kokichi and so many of their classmates never got.

Shuichi set the flowers down almost reverently, not looking at Kokichi’s grave as if he were pointedly refusing to look the Ultimate Supreme Leader in his taunting purple-carbonation eyes. “You’d laugh at me, Kokichi,” Shuichi muttered down at the gravestone. “Wouldn’t you? Hmmm.”

Shuichi and the other two killing game survivors — Maki Harukawa, Ultimate Assassin and Himiko Yumeno, Ultimate Magician — had been making their own way, now. Himiko took gigs performing magic tricks under a fake name, wearing a variety of sparkly wigs and very dramatic makeup. Shuichi and Maki had been trying their hand at running a detective office together. Sometimes Shuichi wondered if it would’ve done any good to change their names – not officially or anything, given that they didn’t have birth certificates, but you know. They could’ve tried harder to disappear into the crowd. But that felt almost like a betrayal of what he’d decided to stand for, after all this time… a betrayal of his friends in their graves, and Kokichi’s bundle of dirty white roses, and just… everything. Anyway, people knew the Ultimate Detective’s skills weren’t faked, even if they _had_ been programmed into another now-lost stranger’s brain. People knew the Ultimate Assassin could get the job done for them, whatever else they might have thought concerning artificially-constructed personalities. 

Shuichi was well aware he was borrowing someone else’s bones, someone else’s dubious grey-gold eyes, someone else’s unwashed dark hair. Sure. Everyone participating in the Danganronpa show had traded their minds for fame and cash and blood, and now... and now Shuichi was what they’d left behind. Other people died and gave their bodies back to the living world, in some way, so that in time they became smoke, become fresh grass, become ash or some other creature’s meat. Whoever had worn Shuichi’s skin before him died and became Shuichi. Easy enough — except of course it wasn’t. The world moved on anyway. Shuichi and his friends made their rent on time most months, and new shuddering neon billboards were sprouting up all over to replace the infamous pink-blood-sticky Danganronpa ads.

This latest round of advertisements flashing along the skyscrapers lining the street to Kokichi’s cemetery were baking-show themed. That meant lots of question marks spilling out of splattered cakes, apparently... lots of frosting swirls and sprinkles. Shuichi passed beneath them, one of his hands scrunched down deep in his coat pocket. He took a sip of scalding hot coffee as he walked. It stung along the back of his mouth and felt gritty in his teeth. He hadn’t brought any flowers today, but he’d thought about it. Honestly, Shuichi thought about what he might bring for Kokichi a lot. More than was probably healthy, though Himiko had just said, “There’s new Panta in the fridge,” before he came here, today, and Maki had insisted on conducting research for their latest investigation by herself for the afternoon. 

Maki probably understood what it meant to want to bring a nefarious, very-dead liar so many white roses. Both of Shuichi’s roommates probably understood, maybe even better than he did, in their ways. Maki stayed up late watching space documentaries in the Ultimate Astronaut’s honor, after all, and Himiko collected things that reminded her of Tenko Chabashira in a secret box under her bed. She had been learning to mold wax watching videos online, too – wax, like Angie Yonaga the Ultimate Artist had used. Everyone mourned in whatever ways made sense, didn’t they? 

Shuichi... Shuichi sort of let his mourning happen. Let the feelings he hadn’t dared to name churn inside him like static, or a relentless River Styx tide. He tried to keep his head above the metaphorical water, from day-to-day. He and Maki helped people find their stolen heirlooms, and chase down missing pets, and whatever else they could do. People paid them in cash, so they wouldn’t get tied back to the Ultimate Detective, personally; Shuichi kept busy. Sometimes they got sketchier, rotten cases handed to them, even though this sparkly new world was _supposed_ to be full of nothing but light. The televised ritual sacrifice of the killing game had been intended to drain society’s demons away like old-timey European doctors slicing their patients open to bleed out a fever. And yet. 

And yet. 

It couldn’t have ever really worked out that way, surely? And people said Kokichi was the worst liar they’d ever seen.

(2.)

But let’s talk about the inciting incident for the next stage in Shuichi Saihara’s stumbling, impossible journey, alright? Let’s talk about today. It started when Shuichi stopped dead in his tracks along the rambling path just beside Kokichi’s gravesite. There were strangers gathered around the Ultimate Supreme Leader’s memorial, see, murmuring together. They looked uncannily familiar, like suddenly seeing a character from your favorite comic in the flesh. One of them was carrying a comically oversized purple balloon, swaying in the wind… all of them were clustered so close to Kokichi’s grave. They seemed sure to recognize the Ultimate Detective if Shuichi stuck around too long. He knew he should probably just spin around in his scuffed black shoes and stalk back home. Kokichi wasn’t going anywhere, after all. 

And so Shuichi hurried away.

Or... maybe he _could’ve_ hurried away, except one of the strangers saw him first. She was a fidgety young woman with long brown pigtails — she waved her hand over her head and called, “Hey! It’s the boss’s boyfriend!”

The boss’s...?

No. 

These people couldn’t look familiar because they were sort of maybe a _little too much_ like the pictures of Kokichi’s clown gang Shuichi’d found online. Right? Obviously, right. D.I.C.E. had never properly existed, after all. They’d been part of the backstory Kokichi’s stolen mind had been programmed with. They’d been actors, or something — incentives, dreamt up to drive their boss to kill. 

Except Kokichi hadn’t killed like Team Danganronpa wanted him to, not in the way that got him off the hook and out of the game. And... even though they were missing their straitjackets and clown masks... it looked sort of like the completely-fictional D.I.C.E. gang was actually _here_. Shuichi had studied them often enough, now that the game was over; Shuichi had imagined what it might like to be one of them, trusting Kokichi absolutely. What Kokichi’s smiles might have looked like filtered through a different emotional lens. If Shuichi had been willing to see him as a friend, as thoughtful and eager and always hunting around for the next game to keep his team happy, is that what Kokichi Oma would have become? Along with everything else he was, of course – his willingness to take precarious risks, his shameless taunting, his biting retorts stripping somebody down to the sinew with a smile. His tea parties.

Shuichi cleared his throat and said, “Um. Excuse me?” 

And another of those D.I.C.E. member-lookalikes nudged the pigtailed woman in the side and chuckled, “He looks like he’s seen a goddamn ghost, doesn’t he?”

“Awwwww… sure does.”

So, this was pretty weird, obviously. Shuichi was ushered into a lopsided, casual circle around Kokichi’s grave, and these strangers patted him on the back. These strangers said they were “So proud of him” for what he’d done during the killing game; they told him Kokichi would be super amused to learn “his beloved Mr. Detective” still brought Panta to his grave. How sweet, right? How understated and solemn and _sweet_ , just like Shuichi himself! Adorable. Adorable, so long as he didn’t go breaking the boss’s heart or anything.

Shuichi and these people who grinned widely and said they _definitely weren’t D.I.C.E. members_ drank the Panta he’d brought together, in the stillness of the cemetery, with neon baking show advertisements cycling above them again and again like the city’s heartbeat. Shuichi thanked them awkwardly; Shuichi studied their faces and postures, looking for anything at all that was dramatically different from the D.I.C.E. pictures he’d seen online. Nothing, though. 

Nothing. These could’ve been exceptionally good cosplayers, but then why would they wear street clothes? This could’ve been a tasteless prank, but then why were they looking at Shuichi so _fondly_? 

At first, Shuichi mostly wanted to squirm away somehow and, he didn’t know. Successfully go home, this time. But the D.I.C.E. members that couldn’t be D.I.C.E. members talked so much like Kokichi used to. They teased each other, and dragged Shuichi into an impromptu guessing game, and... even though it was a little much, a little overwhelming... Shuichi swallowed down his excuses to leave. Shuichi had known D.I.C.E. was supposed to be Kokichi’s family. This was where he would have felt safe, surrounded by voices he knew, at the mercy of people who would groan and scold him for his tricks, maybe, but never exile him to some school ventilation system like Shuichi and his classmates had done. D.I.C.E. would never leave Kokichi alone in the virtual snow (long story, don’t ask), telling him there was no way they’d ever work with him... like Shuichi had done, all on his own. And that was even before they knew what had happened with Gonta and Miu, by the way. That was even before they knew how increasingly frantic and self-destructive Kokichi’s plans to end the killing game would become. 

This wasn’t D.I.C.E., was it? This was a lie, like white roses symbolizing a new beginning for Kokichi Oma.

Wasn’t it?

After a while, one of those almost-D.I.C.E. members — a huge guy with sharp, knowing eyes — produced a glossy purple gadget from inside his coat. It looked like a two-way radio, sort of, but when he fiddled with it a little the air got blurry around them. He was dampening their voices, or projecting a temporary recording of something else they might be talking about. Shuichi had seen technology like that before, solving cases with Maki. Its effect wouldn’t last long, and it wasn’t super reliable if some stranger actually came up to talk to them… but it meant the other shoe just had to drop.

The almost-D.I.C.E. guy gestured at those cooking show ads behind Shuichi’s head, over past the cemetery gates. “Do you know what that’s about, Detective Saihara?” he asked. “The Fresh Start Baking Challenge?”

“It’s supposed to be a comedy, I’ve heard,” Shuichi offered. “The gimmick is that no one knows who any of the contestants are, but they’re ‘larger than life.’ Mystery contestants, and ridiculous baking challenges. Right?”

“Oh, right,” said the almost-D.I.C.E. member. “So you know a little. But you don’t know enough to care, yet. Practically no one outside the studio does, or it would sort of ruin the joke.”

“We have a job for you,” said the woman with long brown pigtails. She was shuffling a beaten-up card deck, restlessly, now. Give her long enough and she’d start spreading out a poker game between the gravestones. Shuichi could just tell. “Or really, the boss has a job for you. What do you say?”

The boss was _Kokichi_ , you know. If this was D.I.C.E., in some impossible way. Shuichi had just flushed red a little and shuffled forward, hearing himself referred to as “the boss’s boyfriend.” He hadn’t contradicted them; he hadn’t asked who they could possibly mean. It had been unspoken. Almost laughably obvious. And now, the boss had a job for him. 

How could Shuichi possibly leave after hearing that?

(1.)

The situation was simple, while at the same time being horrifically complicated nightmare fuel. These people weren’t technically D.I.C.E. members, but also, hey, they were the closest thing the world had ever seen: the actors who’d been hired to play Kokichi’s gang during the upcoming Fresh Start Baking Challenge. See? So they hadn’t been lying! 

Got you.

These were the same actors who had modeled for D.I.C.E. way back in the day, too, okay? And when it turned out Kokichi Oma was gonna be back on TV, they’d been the obvious picks. They’d been fed new memories to understand how it would feel to actually belong with D.I.C.E. and everything. Ever heard of method acting? Kinda like that. It had seemed simple, at first, like rehearsing a scene so many times it started floating to the surface of their dreams. They’d been hired to put on a show to keep the Ultimate Supreme Leader quiet — so he wouldn’t realize what was really going on and ruin everything again. 

And, well. That whole idea had backfired, hadn’t it? Here they were, after all. Most of them drifted away after Shuichi let on he was willing to hear their pitch, leaving only a few of the least-conspicuous among them whispering all of this as earnestly as bouncy-voiced clown gang members really could. Swearing up and down that Shuichi could believe them, this time, even if yeah it was a pretty good bet they’d try to mess with him down the line. They sat together in the shadow of Kokichi’s grave, saying they’d been working with the guy one-on-one for weeks, now, and he was their boss, like, really. Like, more than they’d ever let on to the creeps who ran the studio... the creeps who still had all of Kokichi’s hopes and thoughts and feelings on digital file, and had only needed to find a willing host for them. Another set of bones to wear; another sacrifice in the name of Hope and Despair. Kokichi cared for D.I.C.E., genuinely. They’d known it from the moment they stepped into his cell. Don’t ask them how. It was the programming, fine. The memories of building forts out of trash together as children, and making up complicated superhero backstories for why they went hungry sometimes. False memories. A lie. Didn’t mean the lie couldn’t matter. Who believed that more than the Ultimate Supreme Leader?

The Danganronpa studio was rebranding; the Danganronpa studio knew there were other ways to show lives ruined on TV. To show resilience, and unspeakable courage. Whatever force had been behind the killing game in the first place was still seeped into everything, wasn’t it? And Kokichi Oma looked a little different, now — but not _that_ different. Nobody expected audiences to think too much about it. He’d been such a popular character, after all, and the public really hadn’t wanted to give up loving to hate him. 

The public hadn’t _learned_ , yet... hadn’t really understood what Shuichi’d done. What he’d been fighting for. But D.I.C.E. got it, or were trying to get it. As actors or as unrepentant clown gang members, D.I.C.E. was as real as Shuichi himself. 

“We’re ‘real’ enough, I think,” snickered the young woman with pigtails, anyway, doing air-quotes and grinning at Shuichi like they were in on a particularly dark joke together. “And we’ve _really_ been sent to see if you’ll help us break this next game, too. Set everybody free. Steal back your friends’ memories, and try to figure out a way so this can never happen again.”

“Like, maybe a clown-themed vigilante group that’ll come and prank you to death if you take dangerous control over people’s lives, or attempt to overwrite personalities with memory guns... or something,” remarked the huge D.I.C.E. member. 

“Are you sure that isn’t too goodie-two-shoes for a secret evil organization?”

“Hm. Maybe you’re right!”

“Take it up with the boss, why don’t you?”

Shuichi had crumpled his empty coffee cup up in his hands, meanwhile. Listening to this cheerful, comic book banter and gritting his teeth together so tight his jaw ached. He couldn’t believe this, right? So Kokichi was alive, sort of. So Kokichi was waiting for him?

Sort of?

_Shuichi couldn’t believe this, right?_

The killing games were over, sure. Everyone could agree on that: Shuichi Saihara had literally blown them up. But Kokichi would be building precariously swaying cake-towers and trying to deal with tangled sabotage and romance drama this next time around. It would be funny... the thought was... for people to watch some of the killing game’s greatest hits come to life again, dueling it out over pastries. Breaking each other’s hearts. Nagito Komaeda, and Kyoko Kirigiri. The Ultimate Prophet, and the Ultimate Pharmacist. Only one representative per season to start with, of course, but then who knew where it could go from there! All of the killing game participants’ memories had been either designed or harvested, after all. It couldn’t have been too hard to steal more bones. And then you just needed a good plastic surgeon — maybe an Ultimate Plastic Surgeon, even. But wait! They had one of those already good to go: he’d been featured in Danganronpa season thirty-four, and plenty of people still wore his t-shirts around. 

And then who knew what was next? Kokichi had theorized he might be trying to win someone’s hand in marriage, given enough time, or barely surviving on a deserted island overrun with monsters. As long as the force behind the killing games had his mind on a hard drive somewhere, they’d be able to reboot him for seasons and seasons, until eventually the novelty wore off. Maybe. Who could say? Kokichi only knew any of this because his faithful D.I.C.E. members had clued him in, even though it could go _really badly_ for them — but that was D.I.C.E. for ya! 

Kokichi knew it was only a matter of time before episodes of the Fresh Start Baking Challenge were ready to film. It was only a matter of time before he was forced to forget what he knew, now, to make him audience-ready... before Shuichi would’ve seen him up on billboards all over again. Who’s the Ultimate Supreme Leader gonna stab in the back this next episode, huh? Maybe _literally_ , with bits of frosting still clinging to his knife? Watch and see!

There were so many more ways to show ruined lives on TV. 

“We’re going to get the boss out of there, somehow,” one of Kokichi’s D.I.C.E. members explained. “But ideally, we want to get _everyone_ out, too. And we wanna get them out fast, before people get reprogrammed or anything dumb like that. He keeps saying...” A deep breath, here. “He keeps saying we need you. He gambled on you before, in one of the last memories he has before... you know.”

Before the hydraulic press thundered down, and Kokichi was gone. Gone, for a while. Gone, until another body was stolen for him, and here they were. Was this still Kokichi Oma, really? He was both the truth and a lie all over again. He was an electronic ghost haunting someone else’s skin. But even so, Shuichi felt a pit open inside him, thinking he’d see the Ultimate Supreme Leader again, even like this. Shuichi felt dragged along by that same emotional current that’d pulled him back to this graveyard week after week. 

As ridiculous as it was — as horrible, as risky, as sure to drag Maki and Himiko with him back into the same checkered, robot bear-infested past they were all trying to move on from — Shuichi said, “Is there any way you can prove you’ve actually talked to Kokichi?” And, actually... surprise... there was.

Did you know Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, that guy who wrote Sherlock Holmes, was once shown staged photos of fairies and absolutely believed them to be the real deal? The Ultimate Detective knew that story well enough. But he wanted to trust Kokichi’s gang... but he was shown a smuggled-away, shaky-cam image on somebody’s phone (flippy purple hair and the edge of a furious smile) and felt adrenaline crackle in his blood. If he didn’t listen right now, how many more regrets would he be carrying around with him, visiting Kokichi’s grave?

“We... Maki Harukawa and I have an office not too far away from here,” Shuichi said, voice strange. “Let’s — I don’t know. Make a plan.”

(And Here We Go!)

Kokichi Oma’s fingers were shaped a little differently than they used to be, and he wore a larger shoe size. Nobody would tell him the name of the guy this body used to belong to, except that he was a “super fan” and he’d been more than honored to offer up his mind, his skin, his carbon. He’d always thought he looked kinda like the Ultimate Supreme Leader, and when they picked him as Kokichi’s newest vessel, hey — he’d finally had absolute proof.

It was hard to know what else was different, wearing this new body... you know, from the “nature vs. nurture” side of things. Kokichi wondered if some of his taste buds had changed. He still liked soda, but that wasn’t a fair comparison, really: didn’t everybody like soda? Kokichi still felt compelled to make his D.I.C.E. gang laugh; Kokichi still remembered what it had felt like to scrape so desperately, so uselessly at the edges of the Danganronpa show killing game, trying to save anyone he could. He had gotten so close to ending the killings, he’d thought... he’d wrestled away control of the Exisals, and he’d tricked and alienated everybody in a series of wacky mistakes and painful misadventures, and he had _gotten so close_. 

Except he hadn’t, had he? Except, as a character on a TV show, Kokichi hadn’t realized how much control the scriptwriters had over his life. How completely they could change the chemistry of his friends’ brains, given that they already didn’t trust him — how his temporary victory had really only felt like quality entertainment to the people watching him rage. “Look at the Ultimate Supreme Leader go! He’s a conniving son of a bitch. Guess you can’t underestimate him!” Something like that. Except, everyone already thought they knew who was gonna win. Hope always won. Hope, as defined by Team Danganronpa.

Nobody had gambled on Shuichi Saihara... except, that was a lie! The students — the doomed characters and killing game participants — had put their faith in that sulking weirdo over and over again. (Except the murderers, but, uh. Everybody put their faith in Shuichi _sometimes_ , at least? When it wasn’t their own personal trial? Hm.) Kokichi had gambled on the Ultimate Detective unraveling his clues and standing for their friends’ collective humanity all the way up to the end of things. Kokichi’s stomach still flip-flopped into uncertain, hopeful knots, realizing that. D.I.C.E. had told him all about it. How Shuichi made himself the bad guy — just like Kokichi had! — for what he believed in. How Shuichi’s eyes had been so calculating, standing before society and screaming “Enough!” Shuichi had been raw hurt and steel. Shuichi had said what needed to be said, even if the words burned on their way out. 

Of course Kokichi was proud of him, even though obviously Shuichi’d never believed him when he said stuff like, “You know you’re amazing, don’t you?” Oh, well. Maybe that was part of the fun, too. Maybe it would mean more, if Shuichi ever _did_ learn to believe him. Kokichi had thought he’d gambled that chance at belief away, but... huh. 

Looked like trickster characters and rascally ne’er do wells were good for ratings.

Kokichi had come back into this world screaming — equipped with all his memories, you know, even the ones filled with poison dyeing his insides like rotten flowers, like a bruise, and even the big finale where his skull finally shattered. But now he was in a cell that they told him looked an awful lot like his research lab back at the Ultimate Academy. Not exactly, but obviously _inspired by_. Kokichi hadn’t lived long enough to be hanging around when Shuichi and the others found his lab... but under different circumstances, the Batmobile model would’ve been pretty cool. Too bad its wheels were fused to the ground. And a guy could never have too many gasmasks and fake-nose glasses, complete with twirly disguise mustaches. That was a given. Kokichi was wearing a pair right now, actually, and pretending to read a book of recipes. 

(The recipes were approved reading material, see, because soon enough Kokichi was supposed to participate in a baking showdown. If D.I.C.E. and Shuichi Saihara couldn’t help him blow this popsicle stand first, he’d forget his rebellion and learn all about fondant. He’d get roped into a dumb love triangle between the Ultimate Fencer and the Ultimate Geologist, or who the hell knew. D.I.C.E. hadn’t been able to steal copies of the programming script yet, and hopefully they’d never have to. 

Hopefully this whole studio was gonna get smashed into rubble soon enough, just like the original Danganronpa killing game set.

Insert a diabolical supervillain cackle here, please. Yeah, still wearing the fake-noses glasses. Those were important.)

Kokichi didn’t know the whole plan D.I.C.E. had been cooking up, to be uncharacteristically honest with you. This way nobody could extract it from his head, and the people monitoring him all the time would have fewer chances to catch on. It was only a little mind-numbingly aggravating to be so completely out of control, but if Kokichi couldn’t trust his team then who the hell could he trust? It was worth it to roll the dice, sometimes. Kokichi had learned Ten New Tips to Bake the Perfect Macarons, by now, and skimmed the ideal measurements for adding fruit-based flavoring to cupcakes. He’d attempted to relay messages to the strangers waiting around in research-lab equivalents on either side of him, too – the Ultimate Ballerina, who guards talked about in eerie, nervous mutters, and the Ultimate Illusionist – but it was hard to know if anybody was listening. A surprisingly slim number of people actually learned Morse code outside of detective novels, apparently, and nobody’d had anything to say when Kokichi whined at the guy who brought his food that he should definitely check if any of his roomies wanted to borrow comics or something. Maybe start a book club.

If they all banded together, Kokichi figured they’d have a better shot at getting everybody out safe – if he could just talk to them privately, maybe scrape together the right words… encouraging lies, or infuriatingly motivational banter…

Nah. Not while they were all being watched like zoo exhibits, of course. Though Kokichi _did_ play music sometimes, up close to the wall, and every now and then the Ultimate Ballerina responded with music of her own, or with splintery, crunching sounds that might’ve meant she didn’t think much of his taste. And then there’d been that time when Kokichi’d almost escaped into the air ducts – back to his Ultimate Academy roots, huh? – and had found himself trapped in a tangled mess of illusory vines apparently creeping out of the Ultimate Illusionist’s lab in all directions like barbed wire brambles around a fairytale castle. They seemed to squirm, those vines, and every now and then Kokichi wound up choking a little against sick-sweet, toxic flower smells. 

Kokichi’d met a dead end, it turned out, during that particular jaunt beyond his cell… complete with a faceful of white, black and red confetti and a gloating Monokuma sign reading, “Nice try, Supreme Leader!”

How exciting, right? Praise from the Danganronpa mascot! Wow!

And then the vent had dropped out from underneath him, and Kokichi’d ended up trying for a catlike landing back on the glossy supervillain-approved floor of his own research lab. (He didn’t exactly manage it.) The guards or whatever must’ve been able to rearrange the maze of vent-tunnels remotely… seemed like a pretty fun toy, if it wasn’t being used for something quite so robot bear/sketchy baking show-themed and horrible.

If Kokichi thought too much about the _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ side to his existence, his borrowed hands got all sweaty. Too many ghosts inside these bones, like streets buried under newer streets as the earth crept up to claim them. Kokichi had read about ancient Roman ghosts marching around British cities, wading through the concrete up to their knees. It reminded him of that, sort of – the clutching awareness of this being belonging to somebody else first. Gave things an entirely different flavor, if Kokichi happened to flip himself off in the stubbornly uncrackable bathroom mirror. Poor guy, who’d traded his body away. It was hard not to think about him, sometimes.

Kokichi still saw himself looking out through these eyes, mind you… he couldn’t help it. This reflection winked when he wanted it to, and made cocky finger guns up at the monitoring cameras. He hoped Shuichi Saihara would be able to see him, too, despite everything, if (or when?) they met up again. D.I.C.E. said the Ultimate Detective had been bringing him gifts at his tourist attraction of a grave – and that he didn’t seem to be, you know, _seeing anybody else_. If that meant anything, after all this strangeness. If that meant anything, given that a globally-broadcasted killing game wasn’t exactly the right kinda atmosphere to go looking for a boyfriend.

There’s one more thing Kokichi was trying to gamble on, though, because wasn’t that just his way? Shuichi Saihara, looking into this new face and really seeing him, someday. He’d been holding on to that one quietly, for a while now… and when the huge plastic-y Monokuma screens crackled to life throughout the Fresh Start Baking Challenge complex – when the Ultimate Detective smiled grimly down from all of them, wearing a D.I.C.E. uniform but not hiding his trademark Game Destroyer glare that disgruntled killing game fans could recognize across the world – the very first thing he said was, “Hey, Kokichi. Would you duck, please?”

Kokichi ducked obediently, recipe book still loose in his hands and mouth falling open into a grin. Not a second too soon, either, given that just about then the vent system trapdoor over his room clattered open and one of his D.I.C.E. teammates swung upside down almost directly above him. She wielded a bright orange and yellow water gun-looking thing, and splattered the outward-facing wall with glitter powder. And, welp. R.I.P., wall. It started dripping apart almost immediately, into fizzling chunks of plaster and melting glass. Ruined metal and sparkles. That started a chain reaction all down the hallway, you know… the walls falling apart, releasing Ultimates from all fifty-three seasons of Danganronpa into the wild.

“This show is canceled,” Shuichi was saying, on the screen above them – on every screen, especially the ones meant for keeping order. “ _All of these shows are canceled._ Alright?”

Of course there were _so many people_ who didn’t think it was alright at all, but Kokichi would learn soon enough that they were finding their boots dramatically glued to the floor right about then, and their weapons replaced with packs of gum, and their uniforms full of itching powder. The Ultimate Assassin could still move pretty damn stealthily, even wearing a chessboard harlequin scarf. Who woulda thought it!

There were so many things Kokichi would learn “soon enough” mind you: that the Ultimate Illusionist would fill the halls with mystical beasts, with too many winding fairytale vines to see through unless they gave you a pass… that they would look Kokichi up and down, and then dial a new outfit into that projection-band they wore on their wrist. They’d manifest themself a D.I.C.E. uniform, mirroring him back with a quiet nod. Kokichi would hear Nagito Komaeda’s rattling laughter from halls and halls away, and learn that the Ultimate Social Media Influencer helped his old murder-classmate Himiko Yumeno smuggle all their memories, all their lost friends’ potential, out of Team Danganronpa’s databases before wiping the system to a fresh, useless slate. They were getting _everybody_ out, after all, even the people who hadn’t been reborn into new skins yet. (D.I.C.E. was thinking super-realistic mechanical skins for whoever wanted them, obviously. What do you think they were, monsters?)

Himiko would offer up a slouching curtsey, showing Kokichi all those salvaged files later on: she’d say, “Ta-da!” like it had been another of her magic tricks. Kokichi would learn just how many pranks his D.I.C.E. members were willing to cook up to bring him back to a home he’d never actually seen, and he’d learn what the Fresh Start Baking Show studio would look absolutely consumed by baking equipment and anarchy.

But not quite yet. For now, Kokichi tucked his recipe book under his arm and looked the Ultimate Detective in the eyes. He wasn’t sure Shuichi would even hear him, considering he was being recorded and all, but still he offered… voice shaky… “Hey yourself, Mr. Detective. Didja come to bring me more roses?”

Shuichi paused. Considering; clearing his throat, and letting his smile soften into something shy. There were absolutely no flowers in the broadcast room with him – no white roses, meaning innocence, meaning eternal love, meaning… you know – and so of course he said, “Yes.”

It was around then that Kokichi remembered he was still wearing the twirly-mustache glasses. 

Too late to take ‘em off for the big reveal, now.


End file.
